TLDR Tech / Data
What COVID did to our forecasting models
The COVID-19 pandemic completely broke Airbnb's demand forecasting models in March 2020. The models, trained on stable historical patterns, failed to handle massive swings in booking volume, unpredictable cancellation spikes, and the collapse of the normal relationship between booking date and travel date (lead-time composition). To solve this, Airbnb decoupled forecasting into two separate parts: gross booking metrics on the booking-date axis and lead-time composition (the proportion of bookings that turn into trips on different future dates).
Read the full story